Today was a doozy.

First of all, I'm just going to start by saying I LIKE Obama. Well, okay, I take that back. I don't like him, but I don't DISLIKE him. I don't want him dead. I don't wish death upon him the whole time he's talking about how he wants to make this country a better place. People who don't even want to give him a chance are so close-minded. Don't you guys realize that if he did get shot, like you're wishing for, that this country will be in a full-blown race war? As in, blacks will be killing whites like no tomorrow, white people will be retaliating, and NO ONE will be safe. You act like you don't care about this now, but that's because this country is so fucking quilted. We don't have a war here, in this country. We don't have any diseases, any major natural disasters beyond a hurricane or two. we don't know what it's like. But if he gets shot, this whole country will become a warzone. Personally, I don't want to see that happen.
His speech was amazing, by the way.





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Anyway. here's something I read yesterday that I loved, just because I've thought the same thing for months now:

“What is this century good for, really?” Tim asks pensively. He’s sat on the floor next to Jacob, vodka bottle clutched in his hand, and the light outside the window is blotting itself out like tie-dye patterns on an old shirt. They should have known from the start how this night was bound to end. Jacob had this idea that they could go drink red wine on a golf course or push each other round in a shopping cart or something, but Tim just wanted to be home.

Jacob sighs. “You’re talking drunk talk,” he says languidly.

He’s already drunk too much himself, he knows that. They’re listening to Leonard Cohen on Tim’s bedroom floor, drinking from an old vodka bottle Tim found stashed at the back of his wardrobe in a shoebox. The carefulness with which Tim had hidden it made Jacob weirdly nostalgic of a time when concealed alcohol was impressive, although he still knows even now if his mom saw him he’d be placed under house arrest for weeks.

Tim nudges Jacob’s foot. “Seriously,” he says, in his I-may-be-a-little-tipsy-but-I-am-about-to-rock-your-tiny-world-with-this-next-statement voice. “Life sucks.”

Jacob nudges him back. It’s too easy, sometimes. “This century’s important for a lot of things,” he tells him.

Tim snorts. “What’ve we got? No Beatles, no Elvis, no Martin Luther King or Joan of Arc. No big war or protest or movement or scapegoat.”

Jacob wonders how long Tim’s been thinking about this.

“Recession,” Jacob offers. “Economic downturn. Iraq, climate change, Heath Ledger.” Listing all the disasters off on his fingers is like pinching your own arm to try and take your mind off a headache.

Tim rolls his eyes. “Ineffective,” he says, slurring on the words a little. “Our time, this millennium, it’s ultimately… meaningless. Y’know?”

Jacob replies, “Hey, hey. We’re hardly past the first decade yet.”

“Yeah,” Tim nods, “and it’s already trite and mediocre.”

“You read too much,” Jacob tells him.

“You don’t read enough,” Tim counters.

Jacob bangs his head on the edge of Tim’s bed in mock despair. He’s still like that, eyes closed, head turned towards the ceiling, when Tim says, “This century’s not helping anyone.”

Jacob murmurs something stupid, like, “Don’t be like that.”

Tim sighs, quieter. “All this century’s going to do is hurt and waste and fuck things up.”

Jacob smiles weakly. “Thought you said it was too ‘mediocre’ for that?”

Tim brushes the remark off. “Whatever,” he mumbles, taking another harsh gulp of vodka. He winces at the burn and shakes his head sharply, and then adds, “I’m just saying, it sucks to be here.”

Jacob straightens his back up again, to clarify. “You mean,” he starts to ask, “Here?” He waves his arms to gesture the world, the universe. “Or, like,” he rests a hand on the bedpost for balance, and says in a lower voice, “Here?” He means them, this, right now, us.

Tim stares straight back at him, and says, “Not here.” He reaches his arm out to the window and he says, “Here.”


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